Should recycling be made compulsory for all households?

There is no doubt that we must all recycle as much as possible. Otherwise, more and more things will end up in landfill sites. We cannot go on creating new landfill sites either, not least because we will run out of space for them sooner or later. Also, the landfill may present a danger to health. It may contaminate the soil, any area of water near it and even the atmosphere.

Many things that end up in landfill sites are made of plastic-plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic cups, disposable nappies and so on. They do not degrade naturally and so are extremely difficult to get rid of. However, it is possible to reuse them in some way. Modern technology enables more and more things which are not biodegradable to be recycled. It has become possible to reprocess used plastic to make new plastic.

In order for this reprocessing process to take place, however, people have to save the plastic goods instead of throwing them out. How can we discourage people from simply throwing away all their waste, plastic goods included?

Recycling things takes up much more time and effort than simply throwing them into a rubbish bin. In several countries recycling often involves sorting through your various items of waste and deciding which of a series of boxes or bins to put them in. One receptacle may be devoted to glass, one to plastics, one to paper and so on.

It has been suggested that the need for recycling is so urgent that governments or local councils should make recycling compulsory. In my opinion this is not a good idea for various reasons. Making things compulsory always alienates some people. If you are trying to introduce a policy of wholesale recycling, such alienation must be avoided. You need to keep as many people as possible on your side.

There are people who would feel a great resentment at being forced to recycle their waste material, even though they might choose to do so of their own accord. They would argue that part of their taxes to the government or council goes to pay for the disposal of waste. It is, thus, the responsibility of the government or council to deal with waste, whether it is recycled or not.

Another argument against compulsory recycling is the physical difficulty involved in making sure that every single householder in the area had recycled all recyclable items of waste. This kind of policing would be difficult to execute.

Then there is the fact that the administrative cost of enforcing such a law would be considerable. It would involve paying people to name, and finding evidence against, any law-breakers.

It would also involve imposing a punishment, probably a fine. Then would come the process of collecting the fine and punishing the people who did not pay the fine. Appeals from people who denied that they had broken the law would have to be dealt with. The whole process would be time- consuming and expensive. I doubt if the money taken in the form of fines would make up for the costs of enforcing the recycling law.

It would be much better if the authorities could encourage everyone to recycle waste through a process of education. If everyone were convinced of the need to recycle, there would then be no necessity for legislation.

This programme of education could exist alongside such practices as charging quite a lot of money for plastic bags at supermarket checkouts. Guidelines could be issued to manufacturing firms to reduce drastically the amount of non-biodegradable packaging they use. Hopefully, such action might obviate the need for legislation.